


So Brightly Dangerous

by Nympha_Alba



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Filming, First Kiss, M/M, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 13:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nympha_Alba/pseuds/Nympha_Alba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times that Colin and Bradley nearly kissed and one that they really did (or two, but the first didn't count).<br/>(Contains Mojo spoiler!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Brightly Dangerous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Piglet76](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piglet76/gifts).



> *glomps you*  
> I went with your prompts "nearly but not quite kissing" and "kissing in the snow". Hope you'll like it!
> 
> A million thanks to Jelazakazone for the super-quick beta.
> 
> Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein don't belong to Shine, the BBC, or me; they belong only to themselves. I make no profit from this endeavour, and no disrespect or offence is intended.

MERLIN S1 WRAP PARTY 

 

It would never have happened if they hadn't been so drunk.

"Dance with me, Colin?" Bradley asks.

A million vague questions are forming in Colin's head as he blinks through his alcohol haze, but this is not the time to try to make sense of things. Instead he nods and lets Bradley pull him onto the dance floor, catching the look of surprised delight in Bradley's eyes.

As they begin to move, Colin decides not to think about it, not think about anything at all and definitely not try to analyse the situation, only accept it as a gift. Besides, he is too happily sailing on a soft, cushioned cloud of drunkenness to want to question Bradley's motives or second-guess himself. 

It's a slow song and Bradley pulls Colin to him, takes his hand and interlaces their fingers, while his other hand finds the small of Colin's back. Colin closes his eyes and tells himself to stay in the here and now, with Bradley warm and solid against him, humming softly in his ear. When Colin gets dizzy watching the room revolve around them, he sighs and puts his head on Bradley's shoulder, not caring who sees. Tomorrow they can blame it on the five hundred drinks they've had. He knows there's a goofy smile on his face and he is happy, happy, happy in the arms of this man he didn't even like six months ago.

When the song stops Bradley pulls away a little, his eyes searching Colin's, and everything around them melts away. For a moment Colin holds his breath as all those questions come flooding back. He wonders if he is going to be kissed, if Bradley would actually want to, if he would do it with all these people around and whether Colin would let him, but then it's all moot because Bradley smiles drunkenly and shoves Colin away, ruffling his hair as he goes. And Colin is left wondering what the hell that was, if it meant anything and in that case _what_. 

 

 

THE REAL MERLIN AND ARTHUR

 

When Bradley pulls over and kills the engine, the absence of noise is deafening.

"We really are in the middle of nowhere," he says, looking around and rubbing the back of his head.

"That's my line," Colin murmurs, leaning over the map to see where they took a wrong turn, or missed the turn altogether.

"It's definitely not your line! You're the navigator, Col, and if _you_ don't know where we are, I'm really getting nervous."

Bradley sounds so upset that Colin glances up and laughs. "With a whole camera team hot on our tracks, I doubt we'll be stranded in the wilderness for very long."

Bradley mutters something inaudible and yanks at the map. They pore over it for a minute with their heads close together until Bradley laughs.

Colin looks up. "What?"

"I just thought… God, we're turning into Merlin and Arthur, out on a quest."

Bradley's words make Colin stupidly warm and gooey inside, happier than he wants to admit, because of course they are Merlin and Arthur but it doesn't do to let on. Instead, he tilts his head and looks at Bradley with fake concern. "This is not good, you know. This is far beyond method. Delusional, believing to actually be the character you play - I'm sure there's a psychological term for it. How long have you believed you're Arthur?" he asks sympathetically. "Would you like to talk about it?"

Bradley rolls up the map and hits Colin over the head with it. "I'm glad we have a camera team looking for us," he says with feeling.

He spreads the map over their laps again and they review it in silence, almost cheek to cheek. They're so close that Colin feels Bradley's body heat and the faint, clean scent of his aftershave. It's completely distracting and the car feels very small. Glancing sideways at Bradley, Colin considers tilting his head so his mouth can find the side of Bradley's neck, and the image is so vivid in his mind that it makes his lips tingle. Just as he draws an involuntary breath and looks up, Bradley turns to say something, and their noses nearly collide. Neither of them pulls back. The silence is absolute. _It's going to happen now_ , Colin thinks. _I'm really going to do it."_

The sound of Bradley's phone cuts shrilly through the silence and makes them both jump. Colin's heart is beating in his throat and he wonders if he looks as bewildered as Bradley does. 

"Camera team," Bradley says, lifting the phone to his ear. "Guess we won't be left to starve in the wilderness after all." 

Colin leans back in his seat, fighting a surge of disappointment and relief, wondering if this is how poor Merlin feels about Arthur, being physically close to him all the time but only loving him from a distance. 

 

MERLIN S3 CHRISTMAS PARTY

Colin leans his shoulder against the door frame, taking a sip of the very potent drink in his hand as he looks out over the roomful of chatting, laughing people. All evening, the sprig of mistletoe suspended from a ceiling lamp has provided a popular spot for various couples, real or temporary, and now a laughing, breathless Katie is extricating herself from Eoin's tentacle arms. Eoin spins around and spots Colin. 

"Colin Morgan, the man himself! The Merlin to my Gwaine!" 

Katie snatches the drink from Colin's hand and pushes him towards Eoin, who pulls him into a bear hug under the mistletoe and slops a very wet kiss on his cheek. Around them people cheer and Colin has to laugh, fending off Eoin like the enormous, enthusiastic puppy he is. 

"Down, boy!" 

Eoin looks around and whoops with delight. "Ah! Here's someone you'll like better." 

Before Colin has even blinked, Bradley is shoved into his arms, and they both freeze. For a long moment they look into each other's eyes. There is no laughter in Bradley's, but a kind of dark heat that makes Colin on edge. A circle of space is clearing around them – everyone wants a good view – and the crowd begins to clap and cheer: "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" 

As if waking up from a dream, Bradley starts and manages a grin as he looks around like a challenge. Then his hands are on Colin's shoulders and his eyes are asking permission, same as his mouth: "You up for it?" 

Colin shrugs, his heart hammering. "Let's give them what they want, yeah?" 

But it's not just the crowd wanting this, and why not take the chance? Colin is always ready to take risks when he works, artistic risks, so why not transfer some of that to his private life? Feeling the warmth of Bradley's skin through his shirt, Colin leans forward and catches Bradley's mouth, closing his eyes to shut out everything but the kiss. 

Bradley's lips are a little chapped from the cold, but his tongue is hot and slick and makes Colin hold back a whimper. 

It goes on forever, and still not long enough. 

When the applause and wolf whistles have died down and Bradley disappears without meeting Colin's eyes, Colin quietly puts on his coat and slips out. For a while he stands in the street taking huge gulps of the chilly air before he hails a cab. Then the London night speeds past outside as he leans back in the seat, the kiss like a film on repeat in his head. 

 

MERLIN S5

It's the very last episode of the very last series of _Merlin_ , and they've been filming for an eternity – an interesting phrase given the context, Colin thinks. Normally he has no trouble separating life and work, his character and himself, but with Arthur dying, the line is suddenly blurred. This is the end of the show, and while it will be a relief to go on to do other things, he knows he'll miss everyone he's worked with here, cast and crew. They're like family. 

And then there's Bradley… Like Merlin and Arthur, they have this _thing_ between them, the thing that's always there but never spoken of, and now that the secret is revealed at last, it's already too late. 

_I have magic. (I love you.)_

There's a lot of touching in these last scenes, and if there has ever been any doubt that Merlin and Arthur love each other, it's swept away now. Before they began rehearsing the scenes, Justin sat Bradley and Colin down and talked to them about making this a goodbye between themselves as well, the last scenes they have together. The last ever for all they know. 

With Bradley in deathly pale makeup, curling in on Arthur's pain, all Colin can think about is how Merlin will be lonely and Arthur-less for a thousand years. The tears come easily then. When he leans over Bradley, bows his head and touches their foreheads together, he stifles an impulse to kiss both of Bradley's closed eyes. 

"Cut!" Justin calls. "Fantastic, Colin! Exactly right!" 

Colin stays where he is for a moment to collect himself, and just as Bradley opens his eyes, a tear falls from Colin's lashes onto Bradley's cheekbone. 

"Hey," Bradley says softly, and instead of sitting up, he pulls Colin down in a hug. "You've done a lot of crying for one man in one day." 

An _aww_ travels through the crew on a sigh. Colin straightens up and gives Bradley a shaky smile. 

"Yeah," he murmurs. "But you were dying." 

Bradley sits up, puts a finger between his neck and the chainmail and makes a face. "You know me," he says. "I always come back." 

 

THE TEMPEST

With a sigh of accomplishment, Colin turns on the shower to wash the Ariel goo out of his hair, pleased that today's performance was the one Bradley came to see. The hag scene went brilliantly, without the voice problems that have been bothering him lately. 

Still rubbing at his hair with a towel, Colin enters the dressing room and finds Bradley half-seated on the edge of the makeup table. 

"I'm afraid I have to go in five minutes," Bradley says and gives him half a hug, patting his back, "but I had to come and tell you how absolutely fucking brilliant you are." He takes Colin by the elbows and shakes him. " _Brilliant_ , I say." 

Colin looks at him, unable to think of a single thing to say. _Thank you_ would probably be appropriate, but his brain is processing Bradley's presence in the small room, the familiar gorgeous face and his voice that Colin has always loved. 

Bradley's hand is still cupped around Colin's elbow, the touch sending a hot little shiver up Colin's arm and down to his fingers, making the pulse tick rhythmically in his fingertips. He feels charged, electric, even if the shower took the edge off the stage adrenaline. Shy all of a sudden, glancing up through his lashes, he takes an experimental step forward until he stands between Bradley's knees. Bradley doesn't move, only gives him a lopsided little smile that is an invite and a question, but however badly Colin wants to lean forward those few inches and kiss that smile, kiss the question away, this is not the time and place. When that kiss between them finally happens for real, he doesn't want to be in a room where people run in and out shouting, doesn't want to be in that strange post-performance state where he can't quite tell which emotions are real and which aren't. 

With his hands on Bradley's warm, jeans-clad thighs he leans forward until their faces are so close he feels Bradley's breath on his lips, and brushes their mouths together so lightly the touch almost isn't there. 

"Too much noise," he murmurs. "Too many people. With cameras." 

He is still too shy to look straight at Bradley, because sometimes Bradley is like the sun, so brightly dangerous it hurts his eyes. 

*

Later that night, Colin aches all over as he throws himself on his bed. Most of all he wants to sleep, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and he has Katie on speed dial.

Her Dublin area accent in his ear sounds like almost-home, making him grin through the haze of his exhaustion. She is definitely the one to talk to right now, because she's known about his crush on Bradley forever. She ships them, she says, whatever that means. Well, he knows what it _means_ , but god knows where she picked up that expression.

"It's gone way beyond a crush, Colin," she says brusquely. "It did years ago. Honestly."

"So you think I should go for it?"

He can practically hear her eyeroll. "Do you even need to ask?"

"So you think I'm really… that Bradley is really… that we are…?" He can't quite get the phrase _in love_ off his tongue.

Katie sighs in exasperation. "If it quacks like a duck…" she says.

The flat is dark with a skewed rectangle of orange light from a streetlamp stretched across the ceiling. Colin smiles up at it. "If it quacks like a duck, is small, yellow, floats in your bath and smells of rubber, then it's probably love?"

"Exactly. What a poetic way of putting it, Colin."

As always when he talks to Katie, he feels better. She is ruthless but kind and cuts through all the nonsense.

"I suppose you're right," he adds grudgingly and pictures her smug smile.

"Of course I am. I'm always right."

"I can live with that, but it hurts to prove all of _them_ right. All those people."

"What people?"

" _Those_ people. WEIRD people. People with… websites."

"Oh, them," Katie says dismissively. "Well, they were right from the beginning, weren't they? From the very first series of Merlin. They knew before you did."

Colin closes his eyes and groans.

*

The next morning, he does something he never, ever does: he looks at behind-the-scenes stuff from the first series of _Merlin_. It doesn't take him long to see that Katie is completely right, and so are the weird people with websites. The way Bradley looks at Colin speaks volumes. Shouts it out. And the way Colin flirts with the camera when Bradley is behind it is nothing less than scandalous; so cripplingly, embarrassingly obvious. But of course he's known it all this time. So has Bradley, and in essence they have been telling each other so for six years. What are they waiting for?

 

MOJO

 

 _Of course I'll be there,_ Bradley replies to Colin's drunk text across the Atlantic. _Wouldn't miss Ben Whishaw for the world._

Colin grins and falls asleep on top of the bedclothes, still with his shoes on.

*

"That's a hell of a powerful scene, when you're dying," Bradley says as they slip out of the theatre through a fire door and walk down the narrow street. Snowflakes are whirling in the air. "I saw several people clap their hands over their mouths."

As they turn the corner into Trafalgar Square, Colin stops and looks out over the scene before them. The sense of awe at being in London, _living_ in London and working there, has never really left him. He loves the lights and the people, even the statue of Lord Nelson against the night sky. Half of him is still going through tonight's performance, the highs and lows, while the other half is intensely aware of Bradley's presence.

"Sorry I'm a bit absent," he says, hunching his shoulders and pushing his hands in his pockets. "I'm still sort of on stage in my head."

Bradley's eyes tell Colin he understands, and all at once, the evening's performance snaps into the background and Colin is absolutely present in the moment. Everything is clear and intense, so very much alive. As the snow begins to fall faster and Colin turns his face up to catch the icy flakes, a wave of happiness breaks in his chest. _This is it_ , he thinks. _It doesn't get better than this._ He turns to look at Bradley and can't take his eyes off him. The tip of the aristocratic nose is red from the cold and the collar of his coat touches the underside of his chin. It must happen now, and Colin takes a step forward and takes Bradley's face in his hands. "Yes?"

After the first, surprised fraction of a second there is a slow smile. "Yes."

Bradley's mouth is warm and pliant, as if he has waited for this for a long time. It's familiar and strange all at once, the softness of Bradley's lips, the slide of his tongue against Colin's, his arms hard around Colin's waist.

When they pull apart to catch their breath, Bradley's eyes are laughing. "You know that London is full of people with phones, right?"

"What?"

" _Phones_." Bradley has that patient, talking-to-an-idiot note in his voice that Arthur so often used with Merlin. "With _cameras_. Little things that go click and capture an image?"

Colin shakes his head, deadpan. "Never heard of. Whatever will they think of next?"

"Or go whirrrrr and capture _moving_ pictures?" Bradley illustrates by wiggling his fingers.

Colin brightens exaggeratedly. "Oh! Like magic?"

Bradley snorts and Colin gets that familiar, warm feeling of accomplishment that always appears when he's made Bradley laugh. "You don't care?"

"No," Colin says, and he's never been so sure of anything except maybe that he wanted the part of Vernon God Little at the Young Vic. Maybe. "I really don't. I'm going to kiss you again. Let them all go whirrrr."

Snow glitters in the air around them among the glowing lights of London, people jostle and shove and buses roar, but all Colin knows is that Bradley's mouth is warm and wet and this is home, this is right, this has been in the making for six years and finally found its way to completion, the kind of completion that is the beginning of something new, of everything good and bright, of things that are brightly dangerous like the sun.


End file.
